a different kind of crazy (2min)
TITLE A Different Kind of Crazy interlude/?
SUMMARY Taemin's never been one to care about what's right or wrong. He doesn't think about things like what's accepted and what's not. He wants what he wants, but it's not always a walk in the park.
CHARACTERS/PAIRINGS [SHINee] Minho/Taemin, Jonghyun/Key. (f(x) cameos)
RATING/WARNING R.
GENRE Real life/romance
1 2 3 4 5 6 ♥ 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 minholude 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
AN: Another "Minholude" xD ~ and does need to be read to understand the story. (^o^)b
a different kind of crazy;
There are very few people in the world who get to Minho--in bad ways--and Eunsook's mother is one of them. Working primarily under her father, he has very little contact with Miok, but when he does, nothing good ever comes out of it. In some ways, he supposes she's taken it upon herself to maternalize him, but she was never a good mother to start with--the woman might as well be a machine. An evil, profit-oriented, overbearingly feminist artificial intelligence only interested in world domination.
Those are the thoughts on his mind as Krystal leads Taemin further and further down the path of no return. Minho thinks he could blame himself for it, if he had the capacity to, because he chose to cross the line--and he specifically chose to cross it with Taemin.
But love--maternal or otherwise--well, that could be left for consideration when sober. Minho is not in any sense a definition of sobriety, seeing as he's been smoking and drinking consecutively for about two hours now, mostly because of his father. He'd phoned him after school let out, and when Minho ignored the call, left a nasty voice mail threatening to do all the things to him he's taught Minho to do to others--stab, maim, beat, and worse. Minho had just texted him, "You're an asshole." and expected no reply. He was not let down.
"Does he ever tell you the truth?" he tunes back into Krystal and Taemin's conversation. Krystal's a tightrope walker, in some aspects, he thinks, and he sometimes wonders if the only reason she gets away with the things she does is because he knows it's the drug talking half the time. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas termed it quite well, actually: you can turn your back on the drug addict, but you can never turn your back on the drug.
"Well, does he?" she urges. Taemin's face is often a look of abridged bewilderment when it comes to Krystal and her uncensored mouth--a normal reaction for most people--and he seems hesitant. "Er," he starts, stalling for the words. Minho speaks up for him.
"I don't make it my priority to break trust I never had to begin with," he says, hinting at Krystal's own bad habit of gossiping. Of course, she disregards his jab, though he knows she had recognized it by the way she replies.
"You shut up, I asked Taemin."
Taemin makes a thoughtful expression, meeting eyes with Minho. His gaze is charged--Minho can't help but think there's something different about him tonight. Something he can't quite place. It's driving him crazy, but Taemin's always done that, so he doesn't understand why it's making him so frustrated.
"It's your fault I can't trust you." he says.
"Oh, burn, the blame game." Krystal umpires, picking up on the tension between them. "What will Minho come back with?"
Minho shoots Krystal a glare. "Can you really blame me?" he asks, leaning from the counter and more into Taemin's personal space. "Nobody in their right mind would find it easy to tell you they're kkangppae, much less feel inclined to tell you at all. It just isn't spoken about."
"You're not in your right mind, though." Taemin replies, though he doesn't look like he's in his either. "You should have felt inclined."
Minho follows the tacit question in his words--Taemin's vaguely alluding to what Minho had been just about to address until Krystal fucked and has continued to fuck everything up.
"Order in the court!" She commands loudly. "The judge has something to say." Krystal slams her drink on the table dramatically. "From a thoroughly unbiased viewpoint," she goes on, "I sentence Choi Minho as guilty on all accounts and charged with handing Taemin over to more adequate, loving hands." Minho knows she knows she's struck a chord, and that just aggravates him even more.
"The whole world only knows you're more experienced." he quips in response. Taemin looks uncomfortable, but Minho's not going to put up with Krystal's shit. "Provoke me one more time, I dare you."
"Few men are willing to admit that." Krystal cuts him off, self-served. "And you know provocation is how I show I care, dear."
"And my terms of endearment include murder of the first degree." Minho replies tonelessly. Krystal beams at him without shame and Minho fails to notice how pale Taemin's face is looking. He does not like dealing with Krystal when others are around--especially with Taemin--because she is a handful in and of herself. There is no end to her mind games and no filter on her mouth; she's truly a force to be reckoned with. Minho has to give respect where it is due, but in no way does he ever intend to be polite about it.
"Does she ever tell you the truth?" Minho turns back to Taemin, and he's honestly curious.
"All the time." Taemin replies, brows furrowed. He's biting his lip, and it's extremely distracting.
Minho pulls back from his looming. "She's only ever telling the truth when she's lying about something."
Krystal downs the rest of her drink in one gulp. "Maybe, but if you were more like me you'd get everything you ever wanted. Instead, you shun emotion and would over-analyze a grain of salt, which is detrimental primarily to yourself. Don't try me, I am better at this than you are."
"I don't lie." Minho's resolute.
"Isn't everybody like that though?" Taemin pipes in with a frown, looking annoyed. "Everybody lies."
"See?" Krystal smirks up at Minho. "I am normal and you are delusional."
"No, you are a buzzkill." Minho hurtles back.
"Plus," Krystal talks over him, "Withholding the truth is the same thing." she snips. "And that was a blatant lie right there, you liar! Liars go to hell, you know."
A headache is threatening to invade Minho's mind when one of the bouncers jogs down the steps and informs him it's almost eight, asking to open the venue. Krystal grabs Taemin's wrist and books it to the front of the stage before anything can be done about it, but Minho doesn't miss the vague look Taemin shoots over his shoulder at him, almost like an afterthought. Then the swarms pile in, filling nearly every available space in the venue within minutes--it's outstanding how much dedicated people can accomplish. Minho scoffs at his own condescending observation.
Eunsook's just returning with her mother, a well disguised expression on her face--but Minho knows her too well. It's a sour look, and offputting. Of course Eunsook's mother would show up at a crucial moment: a moment where Eunsook does not need her influence or conniving.
Miok pauses at the bar, prim and proper and clean in all her whiteness. "I'll be speaking with you again on new year's eve." she says with an air of foreboding, then rejoins her loitering secretary, busy typing something into her phone, and exits the venue.
The first pre-up band announces their presence simultaneously, and Minho chooses to say nothing. He's glad they're in the back of the venue when Eunsook sits heavily onto the barstool across from him. She doesn't have to raise her voice to be heard.
"Minho," she addresses him directly, though she's got her forehead against one hand, propped by the elbow. He can't see her eyes, but her tone says it all for him. "My mother and father had another one of their disagreements, and she found it necessary to berate me for not stepping up to my birthright and--in her own words, mind you--commanding your obedience in the most exact sense. She's still convinced I can handle it, that I want to handle it, and just because I'm a woman, she's devised a fucked up plan to make my father either accept me as the legitimate heir, or marry me off to a man she finds worthy."
Here, Eunsook picks her head up from her palm and looks directly at him. "We've seen this coming." she says darkly. All traces of her usual cheerfulness are replaced by an almost matriarchal disapproval--anger, really. "And she knows he will never go for the former, so basically, tricking him into choosing the latter."
Over the loud pounding of offbeat bass, the tinny voice of the vocalist, the ever present murmur of an anxious crowd, Minho lets Eunsook's bombshell do all its damage. It's enough to hear her say the word "fuck", and if it were him, Minho would have added an overabundance of other profane words here and there.
"When?" he presses.
"She's already arranging our engagement, and she wants us married by the time you've graduated."
"Fuck." Minho hisses, ignoring the few people wandering expectantly over to the bar. They can fucking wait. "This cannot happen. She always has ulterior motives and I am not going to bend to her diabolical bullshit."--If Krystal's right about one thing, it's Miok's backseat tyranny. "I don't work for her, I work for your father. I'll talk to him."
"I abhor the fact that her blood runs in my veins." Eunsook's biting her lip, eyes glassy. "You're right, it absolutely cannot happen. But I need to go, and you have customers." she slides off the stool without another word and squishes through the people to the backstage entrance. Minho watches her go with an empty feeling in his gut.
He fills out the drink orders and sneers in response to one's rude impatience. His night has already been thoroughly ruined, and it's just begun.
By the time the first pre-up artist is finishing their last song, Minho's retrieved the second bartender from the dancefloor island and gone upstairs to the balcony to watch Eunsook and her band perform--Absent at the Monarch's. He'd always liked the flow of the name, though Eunsook has never bothered to explain it to him.
She's amazonian in her tall platforms, and she's let loose her teased, wild hair. It frames her face, and the half-hidden expression of choleric distraught upon it. Minho fancies the idea that it suits her, but he knows nobody would ever agree with him. The thought doesn't deter his own, however, and he leans over the railing, listening to Eunsook introduce the band.
She doesn't stutter or act distracted in anyway, in fact, the resolution in her body language reflects in her tone. Minho's actually looking forwards to the show. He finds it the only thing he can look forwards to right now. His life is taking a shit all over his priorities--including Taemin--which is going to be a big problem, and Minho's not too fond of problems. But he's never been one to back down from a challenge--he's got a record to upkeep, after all.
previous | next
note; Corny ending is corny. I wrote the entirety of this while sobering up from a sleepless night of best friends, Malibu coconut rum, and some mighty fine grass. So if it's a little out there, that's why. >.>;;
I also totally didn't expect this myself, but this plot bunny is obviously evil incarnate so I shouldn't be surprised. For one, IT DOESN'T LET ME SLEEP. And for two, it references bunnies, which I loathe with a passion. I hate rabbits, and nothing you say will convince me otherwise. :V
My friend Daehan is awesome and translated "absent at the monarch's" to "비어있는 왕좌" which literally translates to "empty throne" but has a deeper ring to it, I guess. I could try to spell it phonetically for you, but I suck at reading Korean. XD But when he said it, it sounded pretty, so I am content.
Minho's an observant character, which I tried to bring out through less dialogue and more inner monologue. The contrast of his thought-processing to Taemin's character's was also fun to write! He thinks about a lot more things, and Taemin can be kind of single-minded.
SUMMARY Taemin's never been one to care about what's right or wrong. He doesn't think about things like what's accepted and what's not. He wants what he wants, but it's not always a walk in the park.
CHARACTERS/PAIRINGS [SHINee] Minho/Taemin, Jonghyun/Key. (f(x) cameos)
RATING/WARNING R.
GENRE Real life/romance
1 2 3 4 5 6 ♥ 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 minholude 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
AN: Another "Minholude" xD ~ and does need to be read to understand the story. (^o^)b
a different kind of crazy;
There are very few people in the world who get to Minho--in bad ways--and Eunsook's mother is one of them. Working primarily under her father, he has very little contact with Miok, but when he does, nothing good ever comes out of it. In some ways, he supposes she's taken it upon herself to maternalize him, but she was never a good mother to start with--the woman might as well be a machine. An evil, profit-oriented, overbearingly feminist artificial intelligence only interested in world domination.
Those are the thoughts on his mind as Krystal leads Taemin further and further down the path of no return. Minho thinks he could blame himself for it, if he had the capacity to, because he chose to cross the line--and he specifically chose to cross it with Taemin.
But love--maternal or otherwise--well, that could be left for consideration when sober. Minho is not in any sense a definition of sobriety, seeing as he's been smoking and drinking consecutively for about two hours now, mostly because of his father. He'd phoned him after school let out, and when Minho ignored the call, left a nasty voice mail threatening to do all the things to him he's taught Minho to do to others--stab, maim, beat, and worse. Minho had just texted him, "You're an asshole." and expected no reply. He was not let down.
"Does he ever tell you the truth?" he tunes back into Krystal and Taemin's conversation. Krystal's a tightrope walker, in some aspects, he thinks, and he sometimes wonders if the only reason she gets away with the things she does is because he knows it's the drug talking half the time. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas termed it quite well, actually: you can turn your back on the drug addict, but you can never turn your back on the drug.
"Well, does he?" she urges. Taemin's face is often a look of abridged bewilderment when it comes to Krystal and her uncensored mouth--a normal reaction for most people--and he seems hesitant. "Er," he starts, stalling for the words. Minho speaks up for him.
"I don't make it my priority to break trust I never had to begin with," he says, hinting at Krystal's own bad habit of gossiping. Of course, she disregards his jab, though he knows she had recognized it by the way she replies.
"You shut up, I asked Taemin."
Taemin makes a thoughtful expression, meeting eyes with Minho. His gaze is charged--Minho can't help but think there's something different about him tonight. Something he can't quite place. It's driving him crazy, but Taemin's always done that, so he doesn't understand why it's making him so frustrated.
"It's your fault I can't trust you." he says.
"Oh, burn, the blame game." Krystal umpires, picking up on the tension between them. "What will Minho come back with?"
Minho shoots Krystal a glare. "Can you really blame me?" he asks, leaning from the counter and more into Taemin's personal space. "Nobody in their right mind would find it easy to tell you they're kkangppae, much less feel inclined to tell you at all. It just isn't spoken about."
"You're not in your right mind, though." Taemin replies, though he doesn't look like he's in his either. "You should have felt inclined."
Minho follows the tacit question in his words--Taemin's vaguely alluding to what Minho had been just about to address until Krystal fucked and has continued to fuck everything up.
"Order in the court!" She commands loudly. "The judge has something to say." Krystal slams her drink on the table dramatically. "From a thoroughly unbiased viewpoint," she goes on, "I sentence Choi Minho as guilty on all accounts and charged with handing Taemin over to more adequate, loving hands." Minho knows she knows she's struck a chord, and that just aggravates him even more.
"The whole world only knows you're more experienced." he quips in response. Taemin looks uncomfortable, but Minho's not going to put up with Krystal's shit. "Provoke me one more time, I dare you."
"Few men are willing to admit that." Krystal cuts him off, self-served. "And you know provocation is how I show I care, dear."
"And my terms of endearment include murder of the first degree." Minho replies tonelessly. Krystal beams at him without shame and Minho fails to notice how pale Taemin's face is looking. He does not like dealing with Krystal when others are around--especially with Taemin--because she is a handful in and of herself. There is no end to her mind games and no filter on her mouth; she's truly a force to be reckoned with. Minho has to give respect where it is due, but in no way does he ever intend to be polite about it.
"Does she ever tell you the truth?" Minho turns back to Taemin, and he's honestly curious.
"All the time." Taemin replies, brows furrowed. He's biting his lip, and it's extremely distracting.
Minho pulls back from his looming. "She's only ever telling the truth when she's lying about something."
Krystal downs the rest of her drink in one gulp. "Maybe, but if you were more like me you'd get everything you ever wanted. Instead, you shun emotion and would over-analyze a grain of salt, which is detrimental primarily to yourself. Don't try me, I am better at this than you are."
"I don't lie." Minho's resolute.
"Isn't everybody like that though?" Taemin pipes in with a frown, looking annoyed. "Everybody lies."
"See?" Krystal smirks up at Minho. "I am normal and you are delusional."
"No, you are a buzzkill." Minho hurtles back.
"Plus," Krystal talks over him, "Withholding the truth is the same thing." she snips. "And that was a blatant lie right there, you liar! Liars go to hell, you know."
A headache is threatening to invade Minho's mind when one of the bouncers jogs down the steps and informs him it's almost eight, asking to open the venue. Krystal grabs Taemin's wrist and books it to the front of the stage before anything can be done about it, but Minho doesn't miss the vague look Taemin shoots over his shoulder at him, almost like an afterthought. Then the swarms pile in, filling nearly every available space in the venue within minutes--it's outstanding how much dedicated people can accomplish. Minho scoffs at his own condescending observation.
Eunsook's just returning with her mother, a well disguised expression on her face--but Minho knows her too well. It's a sour look, and offputting. Of course Eunsook's mother would show up at a crucial moment: a moment where Eunsook does not need her influence or conniving.
Miok pauses at the bar, prim and proper and clean in all her whiteness. "I'll be speaking with you again on new year's eve." she says with an air of foreboding, then rejoins her loitering secretary, busy typing something into her phone, and exits the venue.
The first pre-up band announces their presence simultaneously, and Minho chooses to say nothing. He's glad they're in the back of the venue when Eunsook sits heavily onto the barstool across from him. She doesn't have to raise her voice to be heard.
"Minho," she addresses him directly, though she's got her forehead against one hand, propped by the elbow. He can't see her eyes, but her tone says it all for him. "My mother and father had another one of their disagreements, and she found it necessary to berate me for not stepping up to my birthright and--in her own words, mind you--commanding your obedience in the most exact sense. She's still convinced I can handle it, that I want to handle it, and just because I'm a woman, she's devised a fucked up plan to make my father either accept me as the legitimate heir, or marry me off to a man she finds worthy."
Here, Eunsook picks her head up from her palm and looks directly at him. "We've seen this coming." she says darkly. All traces of her usual cheerfulness are replaced by an almost matriarchal disapproval--anger, really. "And she knows he will never go for the former, so basically, tricking him into choosing the latter."
Over the loud pounding of offbeat bass, the tinny voice of the vocalist, the ever present murmur of an anxious crowd, Minho lets Eunsook's bombshell do all its damage. It's enough to hear her say the word "fuck", and if it were him, Minho would have added an overabundance of other profane words here and there.
"When?" he presses.
"She's already arranging our engagement, and she wants us married by the time you've graduated."
"Fuck." Minho hisses, ignoring the few people wandering expectantly over to the bar. They can fucking wait. "This cannot happen. She always has ulterior motives and I am not going to bend to her diabolical bullshit."--If Krystal's right about one thing, it's Miok's backseat tyranny. "I don't work for her, I work for your father. I'll talk to him."
"I abhor the fact that her blood runs in my veins." Eunsook's biting her lip, eyes glassy. "You're right, it absolutely cannot happen. But I need to go, and you have customers." she slides off the stool without another word and squishes through the people to the backstage entrance. Minho watches her go with an empty feeling in his gut.
He fills out the drink orders and sneers in response to one's rude impatience. His night has already been thoroughly ruined, and it's just begun.
By the time the first pre-up artist is finishing their last song, Minho's retrieved the second bartender from the dancefloor island and gone upstairs to the balcony to watch Eunsook and her band perform--Absent at the Monarch's. He'd always liked the flow of the name, though Eunsook has never bothered to explain it to him.
She's amazonian in her tall platforms, and she's let loose her teased, wild hair. It frames her face, and the half-hidden expression of choleric distraught upon it. Minho fancies the idea that it suits her, but he knows nobody would ever agree with him. The thought doesn't deter his own, however, and he leans over the railing, listening to Eunsook introduce the band.
She doesn't stutter or act distracted in anyway, in fact, the resolution in her body language reflects in her tone. Minho's actually looking forwards to the show. He finds it the only thing he can look forwards to right now. His life is taking a shit all over his priorities--including Taemin--which is going to be a big problem, and Minho's not too fond of problems. But he's never been one to back down from a challenge--he's got a record to upkeep, after all.
previous | next
note; Corny ending is corny. I wrote the entirety of this while sobering up from a sleepless night of best friends, Malibu coconut rum, and some mighty fine grass. So if it's a little out there, that's why. >.>;;
I also totally didn't expect this myself, but this plot bunny is obviously evil incarnate so I shouldn't be surprised. For one, IT DOESN'T LET ME SLEEP. And for two, it references bunnies, which I loathe with a passion. I hate rabbits, and nothing you say will convince me otherwise. :V
My friend Daehan is awesome and translated "absent at the monarch's" to "비어있는 왕좌" which literally translates to "empty throne" but has a deeper ring to it, I guess. I could try to spell it phonetically for you, but I suck at reading Korean. XD But when he said it, it sounded pretty, so I am content.
Minho's an observant character, which I tried to bring out through less dialogue and more inner monologue. The contrast of his thought-processing to Taemin's character's was also fun to write! He thinks about a lot more things, and Taemin can be kind of single-minded.